Three New LNG Suppliers Use Lithuania's Terminal
The number of suppliers to Lithuania’s LNG import terminal quadrupled in 2017 to include two from the US and one from Spain.
Operator Klaipedos Nafta said last week that, whereas only Statoil had supplied cargoes in 2015 and 2016, this year so also had US traders Cheniere, Koch, and Spanish utility Gas Natural. The disclosure was made in a presentation September 20 by KN project analytics manager Mantas Sabanas to the 12th Gas Forum hosted by the Energy Community (EC) and released September 22.
Lithuania's first such LNG import cargo from the US arrived this August from Cheniere's Sabine Pass export terminal; most cargoes imported hitherto had come from the Statoil-run Snohvit LNG in Arctic Norway.
KN's floating import terminal at Klaipeda was opened December 2014 and can regasify up to 4bn m3/yr. Sabanas said actual volumes supplied were 0.5bn m3 in 2015, 1.3bn m3 in 2016, with 1.1bn m3 forecast for 2017 – which meant 30% capacity utilisation last year, and likely over 25% in 2017.
‘New users’ in 2017 had joined the established trio of Lithuanian importers – Litgas, Lietuvos Dujos Tiekimas, and chemicals firm Achema – already active there in 2016, said Sabanas, without naming the newcomers.
Graphic credit: Klaipedos Nafta, presentation to EC 12th Gas Forum, September 20
This year he said only the Baltic Republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania itself had access to volumes regasified at Klaipeda, but said that in 2018 that would expand to Finland and Poland; it’s believed the latter two will gain access via smaller cargoes reloaded at Klaipeda. There had been 3 reloading operations at Klaipeda so far in 2017, he added; one of these is understood to have been by Shell to commission a new break-bulk facility there.
Sabanas also foresaw potential for the terminal to serve the Baltic bunkering market, with a new 7,500 m3 bunkering vessel to be stationed at Klaipeda from next year by Nauticor (formerly Bomin Linde), and the Swedish mini-LNG terminal at Nynashamn among ports within one hour's sailing.
Graphic credit: Klaipedos Nafta, presentation to EC 12th Gas Forum, September 20 2017
Mark Smedley